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Greenlee horizontal metal cutting band saw

02-25-2013, 05:48 PM

Spotted this older bandsaw while doing a preview walk thru for the auction this weekend.
It's a Greenlee and it looks like you can angle the blade so you can make vertical angle cuts
as well as being able to angle the piece horizontally on the table so you could actually do a compound cut from what I see. Never saw a band saw of this type before that I can remember that could do that.

I don't know if I will be at the auction this weekend or not but I will have to check it out closer and may even bid on it as I would like to have the capability to cut metal stock with other than a portaband, grinder, O/A, or plasma.

Anyone care to venture a guess at what it might be worth providing it runs?

Also spotted this old power hacksaw. looks pretty beat but probably still works even after 50 years.
I have no interest in this. I'm not running a museum.

"When we build let us think we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone. Let it be such work that our descendants will thank us for, and let us think, as we lay stone upon stone, that a time is to come when these stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say, as they look upon the labor and wrought substance of them, "See! This our fathers did for us."
John Ruskin (1819 - 1900)

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I figure if I can grab it for under $50, maybe a touch more, I will go for it. I was
able to pull the blade through by hand, no idea if the motor is any good, but I can
probably come up with a motor easy enough so not too worried about that.

The old power hacksaw can't go for much and I'm not bidding on that. I don't have
room to start a museum. Barely enough room for tools I use.

"When we build let us think we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone. Let it be such work that our descendants will thank us for, and let us think, as we lay stone upon stone, that a time is to come when these stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say, as they look upon the labor and wrought substance of them, "See! This our fathers did for us."
John Ruskin (1819 - 1900)

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I looked up the blades, as printed on the machine in the picture. They are surprisingly common, but mostly used in the meat cutting industry or have minimum teeth per inch of blade. Lenox had one listing. I think it had 10 TPI.

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Mcmaster-carr has some listed too. We'll see how it goes this saturday.

"When we build let us think we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone. Let it be such work that our descendants will thank us for, and let us think, as we lay stone upon stone, that a time is to come when these stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say, as they look upon the labor and wrought substance of them, "See! This our fathers did for us."
John Ruskin (1819 - 1900)

I couldn't believe how many people were interested in this old saw. I did some homework before the auction started (smartphones are great for this stuff when you're standing in the middle of a corn field waiting for the auction to start) and found out its a Greenlee Model 348 4-way band saw and looks like its 1985/86 vintage. I found a couple of the same model that went at auction elsewhere in the past year for $375, and $575. I found a similar new model from Greenlee for $4700 !! So with that information in the back of my mind I waited for them to get around to this item.

I ended up holding out till the end and snagged it for $250 + tax. Got it loaded up in the pickup and took it home and used the chain hoist in the garage to unload it. Checked it over and everything looked OK, no damage to wiring or switches so I decided to plug it in and give it a try. Fired right up and runs nicely. Needs a new blade which I have ordered two of them but other than that and some cleaning and minor adjustments I think I'm good. Only thing it does not have which I may see if I can rig something up is a tray to catch the saw dust instead of it just dropping to the floor where it will get picked up on the bottom of boots and end up everywhere I don't want it to.

Has a 4 step pulley so four speeds. The hydraulic piston doesn't leak but I think I will look at replacing the 1/4" gauge cock with a 1/4" needle valve for better down control adjustment. Once it reaches the end of the cut it shuts off automatically.

From what I have read online (still looking for a manual) I think this will cut up to 8" pipe. Can't beat it for less than the price of a porta-band.
Should work great for the little bit of metal work I do around here.

Oh, that power hacksaw in my first post went for $5. A 10" Craftsman RAS in good condition went for get this $2 ! ! When I say good I am talkoing it looked as good as any I have seen on CL or eBay for $100 to $200 except it didn't have any legs. They started the bidding at 50 and no one budged, dropped to 25 and nothing. Got all the way to a dollar before someone raised their hand, then another person bid $2 and that was where it closed. Couldn't believe it. Thinking about it afterward I should have picked it up for $2. I could have easily resold it for $50 on CL. A second RAS also went for $2 but it was not in as good of shape.

"When we build let us think we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone. Let it be such work that our descendants will thank us for, and let us think, as we lay stone upon stone, that a time is to come when these stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say, as they look upon the labor and wrought substance of them, "See! This our fathers did for us."
John Ruskin (1819 - 1900)

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If anyone here has a copy of the manual for this saw, I would like to get a copy. I have searched the web and ebay and greenlees' website as well as many forums over the past two days and found nothing except someone who was selling a model 346 about 2 years ago who said he had a pdf copy of the manual. I wrote him but no answer yet. Also, my saw is missing the belt guard. If someone has this saw and could take a couple photos of the guard around the motor and belt that would be great.

Today I cleaned it up a bit and straightened out some bent sheet metal. Tried making a cut to check for square but the blade has nothing left in the way of teeth. I did check the vise to the blade for square and the table to the blade as it travels up and down and that is square also.

One thing this saw does is compound cuts. You can angle the stock on the table horizontally to the blade and you can also tip the blade to 15, 22.5, 30 or 45 degrees to the left.

"When we build let us think we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone. Let it be such work that our descendants will thank us for, and let us think, as we lay stone upon stone, that a time is to come when these stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say, as they look upon the labor and wrought substance of them, "See! This our fathers did for us."
John Ruskin (1819 - 1900)

Comment

New blades showed up today and Imounted one and dida couple test cuts. Needs a slight adjustment to get the vise square to the blade but not bad. I used a 2x4 to make the test cuts first standing it up on edge then laid it flat. After squaring the vise to the blade its cutting nicely. I think its gonna work out just fine in my shop. Now I want to make a table for it so Ican use it in the verticle position. I have no idea what it looks likesince Idon't have a manual and have not found a photo of one on the web butfrom the description on the instruction decal on the saw I have a rough picture in my mind. Need a piece of plate to cut and weld to make the table. Shouldn't be too difficult.

"When we build let us think we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone. Let it be such work that our descendants will thank us for, and let us think, as we lay stone upon stone, that a time is to come when these stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say, as they look upon the labor and wrought substance of them, "See! This our fathers did for us."
John Ruskin (1819 - 1900)

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If you have more info on the model you might be able to find it at this link. Greenlee Instructional Manuals: Greenlee Instructional Manual and Document Search
Greenlee was going through some changes is 1986. It was bought by it's current parent company Textron. Maybe if you call the number in the link they can print you a copy off of microfiche.

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If you have more info on the model you might be able to find it at this link. Greenlee Instructional Manuals: Greenlee Instructional Manual and Document Search
Greenlee was going through some changes is 1986. It was bought by it's current parent company Textron. Maybe if you call the number in the link they can print you a copy off of microfiche.

Thanks, that's one of the sites I checked. Searched every way from Sunday but didn't turn up a manual for my saw or it smaller cousin the 346. I did download and look at the newer model bandsaw manual, but they are very different saws. I have a search set up on eBay to look for one. that's probably my best bet.

"When we build let us think we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone. Let it be such work that our descendants will thank us for, and let us think, as we lay stone upon stone, that a time is to come when these stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say, as they look upon the labor and wrought substance of them, "See! This our fathers did for us."
John Ruskin (1819 - 1900)

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some greeenlee tools are relabeled tools, and if you see a similar saw (different company) most likely they may have been the original manufacture, I looked some but have not seen a clone to it, yet,

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I believe you're correct BHD. I saw some references to Greenlee buying out a company called TeMac
or somethimg like that who it looks like originally made the saw.

But that was so far back in time I doubt that TeMac even had a website. Looks like this saw started life in the 60s and lived on into the late 80s. From what I can tell my saw was made in 85 or 86.

"When we build let us think we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone. Let it be such work that our descendants will thank us for, and let us think, as we lay stone upon stone, that a time is to come when these stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say, as they look upon the labor and wrought substance of them, "See! This our fathers did for us."
John Ruskin (1819 - 1900)